RSVP IV: Tales of the Kimarillion: 17 - The HOBBY
by Riplakish
Summary: An AU Tale on the heels of a little incident with the Pan-Dimensional Vortex Inducer in Chapter 41 of RSVP II: The Two powers


**Tales from the Kimarillion **

**RSVP IV: 17 The HOBBY**

**Chapter 1 – ****On the Hazards of Smoking after Breakfast**

There was a flash of light and the world turned inside-out.

The mutiverse spun past like the flipped pages of an extremely large catalog.

He found himself falling between the "pages" and down a dark hole into the earth.

Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a Halfling-hole, and that means comfort.

It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted green, with a shiny yellow brass knob in the exact middle. The door opened on to a tube-shaped hall like a tunnel: a very comfortable tunnel without smoke, with paneled walls, and floors tiled and carpeted, provided with polished chairs, and lots and lots of pegs for hats and coats—he was fond of visitors. The tunnel wound on and on, going fairly but not quite straight into the side of the hill - The Hill, as all the people for many miles round called it - and many little round doors opened out of it, first on one side and then on another. No going upstairs for the him: bedrooms, bathrooms, cellars, pantries (lots of these), wardrobes (he had whole rooms devoted to clothes), kitchens, dining-rooms, all were on the same floor, and indeed on the same passage. The best rooms were all on the left-hand side (going in), for these were the only ones to have windows, deep-set round windows looking over his garden and meadows beyond, sloping down to the river.

This halfling was very well-to-do and his name was Rondo. It seemed as if he had lived in the neighbourhood of The Hill for time out of mind—though he seemed to have a fading memory of another life, a world filled with strange sciences and mechanical contivances…

…but that memory was fading quickly as he wandered into one of his kitchens and began preparing Second Breakfast.

After a large repast of blended cheeses, shredded meat, and deep-fried pasta triangles, he went to the outer door and gazed over the rolling countryside as he smoked an enormous long wooden pipe that reached nearly down to his woolly toes (neatly brushed).

And while in thoughtful repose (and a little buzzed on the new blend of pipeweed from the Misty Mountain Plateaus), Waydlod came by.

Waydlod! If you had heard only a quarter of what I have heard about him, and I have only heard very little of all there is to hear, you would be prepared for any sort of remarkable tale. Tales and adventures sprouted up all over the place wherever he went, in the most extraordinary fashion. He had not been down that way under The Hill for ages and ages, not since his friend the Old Took died, in fact, and the halflings had almost forgotten what he looked like. He had been away over The Hill and across The Water on business of his own since they were all small halfling-boys and halfling-girls.

All that the unsuspecting Rondo saw that morning was a tall, old black man with a staff. He had a tall pointed blue hat, a long grey cloak, a silver scarf over which a white beard hung down below his waist, and immense black boots. "Good morning!" said Rondo, and he meant it. The sun was shining, and the grass was very green. But Waydlod looked at him from under long bushy eyebrows that stuck out further than the brim of his shady hat. "What do you mean?" be said. "Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want not; or that you feel good this morning; or that it is morning to be good on?"

"All of them at once," said Rondo. "And a very fine morning to marinate and enjoy some snackage into the bargain. If you have a pipe about you, sit down and have a fill of mine! There's no hurry, we have all the day before us!" Then Rondo sat down on a seat by his door, crossed his legs, and blew out a beautiful grey ring of smoke that sailed up into the air without breaking and floated away over The Hill.

"Very pretty!" said Waydlod. "But I have no time to blow smoke-rings this morning. I am looking for someone to share in an adventure that I am arranging, and it's very difficult to find anyone."

I should think so - in these parts! We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner! I can't think what anybody sees in them, said Rondo, and stuck one thumb behind his braces, and blew out another even bigger smoke-ring. Then he took out his morning letters, and begin to read, pretending to take no more notice of the old man. He had decided that he was not quite his sort, and wanted him to go away. But the old man did not move. He stood leaning on his stick and gazing at the hobbit without saying anything, till Rondo got quite uncomfortable and even a little cross.

"Good morning!" he said at last. "We don't want any adventures here, thank you! You might try over The Hill or across The Water." By this he meant that the conversation was at an end.

"What a lot of things you do use Good morning for!" said Waydlod. "Now you mean that you want to get rid of me, and that it won't be good till I move off."

"Not at all, not at all, my dear sir! Let me see, I don't think I know your name?"

"Yes, yes, my dear sir - and I do know your name, Mr. Rondo Stopalong. And you do know my name, though you don't remember that I belong to it. I am Waydlod, and Waydlod means me! To think that I should have lived to be good-morninged by Dean Stopalong's son, as if I was selling buttons at the door!"

"Waydlod, Waydelod! Good gracious me! Not the wandering wizard that gave Old Took a pair of magic diamond studs that fastened themselves and never came undone till ordered? Not the fellow who used to tell such wonderful tales at parties, about dragons and goblins and giants and the rescue of princesses and the unexpected luck of widows' sons? Not the man that used to make such particularly excellent fireworks! I remember those! Old Took used to have them on Midsummer's Eve. Splendid! They used to go up like great lilies and snapdragons and laburnums of fire and hang in the twilight all evening!"

You will notice already that Mr. Stopalong was not quite so prosy as he liked to believe, also that he was very fond of flowers.

"Dear me!" he went on. "Not the Waydlod who was responsible for so many quiet lads and lasses going off into the Blue for mad adventures. Anything from climbing trees to visiting Elves - or sailing in ships, sailing to other shores! Bless me, life used to be quite inter - I mean, you used to upset things badly in these parts once upon a time. I beg your pardon, but I had no idea you were still in business."

"Where else should I be?" said the wizard. "All the same I am pleased to find you remember something about me. You seem to remember my fireworks kindly, at any rate, land that is not without hope. Indeed for your old grand-father's sake, I will give you what you asked for."

"I beg your pardon, I haven't asked for anything!"

"Yes, you have! Twice now. My pardon. I give it you. In fact I will go so far as to send you on this adventure. Very amusing for me, very good for you and profitable too, very likely, if you ever get over it."

"Sorry! I don't want any adventures, thank you. Not today. Good morning! But please come to tea - any time you like! Why not tomorrow? Come tomorrow! Good-bye!"

With that the halfling turned and scuttled inside his round green door, and shut it as quickly as he dared, not to seen rude. Wizards after all are wizards.

"What on earth did I ask him to tea for!" he said to himself, as he went to the pantry. He had only just had second breakfast, but he thought a cake or two and a drink of something would do him good after his fright.

Waydlod in the meantime was still standing outside the door, and laughing long but quietly. After a while he stepped up, and with the spike of his staff scratched a queer sign on the halfling's beautiful green front-door. Then he strode away, just about the time when Rondo was finishing his second cake and beginning to think that he had escape adventures very well.

This was not, however, the case...


End file.
